


to fall (to trust)

by apollothyme



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Footy Ficathon, M/M, Mile High Club, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:58:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is in no way whatsoever freaking out.</p><p>Seriously, he’s fine. Completely, one hundred percent fine and downright <i>dandy</i>. So maybe his grip on the armrests is so tight that it’s cut off blood flow to his fingers and he’s been counting backwards from five hundred for the past twenty minutes. What of it? That doesn’t mean he is anything but fine, which is what he totally is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winterveined](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterveined/gifts), [ascience](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/gifts).



He is in no way whatsoever freaking out.

Seriously, he’s fine. Completely, one hundred percent fine and downright _dandy_. So maybe his grip on the armrests is so tight that it’s cut off blood flow to his fingers and he’s been counting backwards from five hundred for the past twenty minutes. What of it? That doesn’t mean he is anything but fine, which is what he totally is.

The plane lurches, heading down for a new imperceptable second before it pulls up again. Benedikt reaches for the paper bag that’s been mocking him since the beginning of the flight with the way it’s right there, sending him ‘ahah, you’re totally going to puke’ vibes. He clutches the bag against his chest, breathing into it with his eyes closed and as he repeats his flying mantra to himself.

_Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Do not fucking puke, Benedikt Höwedes. You’re in a plane and there are few things worse than puking in a plane, including, but not limited to, hearing Draxler talk about his newest crush and playing Scrabble with that weird neighbor kid, Kroos._

The plane lurches again, reaffirming Benni’s belief that he got on on the wrong plane and he’s actually on a flight headed towards hell. His clutch on the paper bag turns tighter. The sound of the paper ripping barely reaches his ears.

It is ever so slightly possible that Benni is not as fine as he’s trying to trick his brain into thinking, and that he’s probably going to pass out and die at some point during his six hour flight to Portugal. He takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time. The numbers read 00:17, which means they’ve been in the air for a little over one hour now.

Oh god, he is so going to die.

“Are you—are you okay?” the person next to him asks, cringing when Benni turns to look at him.

Benni doesn’t find this reaction surprising. He can imagine what he looks like just from how he feels, which is shit all over. He’s probably white as foam, maybe even a little yellow. He can feel how his eyes are bulging out of their sockets, and he must look kind of dazed, but mostly insane. 

“I am going to die,” Benni says, earnest and dead serious, looking at the stranger in the eye. He feels the plane climb a little higher—fucking Christ, why couldn’t they just fly in a straight fucking line—and immediately pushes back against his seat, lifting his chin and closing his eyes. “Not literally, I’m not like sick or anything. I’m just a bad flyer, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“I could tell,” the stranger says and then he has the nerve to chuckle, as if seeing Benni freak out for the past hour has been amusing him, which, honestly, it probably has, but _still_. Have some respect for the clearly dying man.

“Good, good. I’m glad my pain is amusing you. This way at least one of us is getting something good out of this,” Benni says.

All of the sudden there’s a warm weight over his right hand. Benni would look down if that didn’t bring him precariously close to puking abyss. “I’m sorry. This isn’t funny, I was just trying to distract you. You do genuinely look like you’re dying.”

Benni swallows and tries to slump in his chair, willing his body to relax. The man’s grip on his hand turns a little tighter, so Benni tries to focus on that and forget about the twist in his stomach. 

“Kind of feel like it, too,” Benni says after a while, when he doesn’t think opening his mouth will make him worse.

The man makes a minute humming noise in agreement. Benni wonders when he’ll let go of Benni’s hand and go back to doing whatever it was he was doing before he decided to come in Benni’s aid. Benni wonders, but he doesn’t ask. As embarrassing as it might be to need a stranger to hold his hand, it beats having no one there. 

“So, what brings you to Portugal? Business or pleasure?” the man asks him, giving Benni something else to focus on. Benni wonders if he knows what he’s doing, how much he’s helping.

“Pleasure. Sorta. My cousin is getting married to a Portuguese guy named _João Brás_. The ceremony will be at a beach in _Cascais_ , even though it’s October and it will probably rain. I heard there were going to be horses,” Benni says, horribly mispronouncing all the Portuguese names.

“Are you only going for the horses?” the man asks, laughing at Benni.

Benni doesn’t have the decency to avoid shrugging. “Also the open bar and the chance for a post-summer holiday. What about you? Business or pleasure?”

“Business. I work in pharmacy and we have a meeting with one of their biggest companies,” the man says, before he leans closer to add, voice down to a loud, conspiratorial whisper, “We want to buy them.”

And the way he says it, as if he’s sharing some kind of important secret between two little kids, is so ridiculous that it cracks Benni up. His grip on the armrests loosens. The pain in his chest eases. The man’s clasp on his right hand remains as tight as it’s been from the start. Benni kind of wants to turn his hand around, grip it properly, but he doesn’t dare to. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet, not since he first glanced at his flight neighbor.

“Is this some kind of underground, illegal merger you’re not allowed to speak about?” Benni asks. He grins to himself when he hears the other man laugh.

“No, I just wanted to make you laugh, person who goes to weddings in Portugal solely for the horses, the free drinks and the holiday time.”

“Those are good reasons, person who goes to Portugal to do under the table business and is probably a mafia boss.”

Benni hears the other man gasp in outrage and cracks one eye open to peer at him. He’s sitting sideways on his seat, turned towards Benni and with his left ear resting against his chair. The lights have been dimmed since Benni last opened his eyes, so it’s hard to take a good look at him, but Benni can still see the hint of a carefully, groomed beard that contrasts with unruly, curly hair. He’s got a wide smile and soft eyes. He is, without a doubt, one of the most attractive people Benni has ever seen.

“I’m not a mafia boss, I’m not even Italian,” the man says, making Benni snort and lull his head back against his seat, his eyes falling closed again.

“You don’t have to be Italian to be a mafia boss. That’s a stereotype and a very hurtful one at that. Everyone can be a mafia boss so long as they follow their dreams and work hard.”

The man chuckles. “Are you always this inspirational or only when you’re in a plane and fearing for your life?”

Not even the reminder that he’s in a plane can bring Benni back to his frenzied state from earlier. He’s too relaxed. Their voices are quiet and soft, so as to not wake up anyone, and for the past five minutes the man has been rubbing his thumb against the back of Benni’s hand in systematic circles. It’s the simplest thing, but it’s enough to ground Benni in.

“I’m the captain of the youth football team in one of my nephew’s school. What do you think?”

“I think that I can already picture you wearing one of those Nike tracksuits in bright red and telling all the kids how wonderful and talented they are, even if they’re complete rubbish.”

Benni chuckles despite himself. “It’s just the pants and they’re Schalke blue, actually. Also, of course I tell them they’re good, they’re kids. What am I going to say, ‘Oh, sorry Manuel, but you can’t play as a striker because you’re built like a brick wall and slower than a tortoise’?”

“You could,” the man says, but he doesn’t sound like he much believes his own words.

“The parents would eat me alive, not to mention it’d hurt the kid's feelings. It’s better to just say something about how he’s really great, but would be best suited as a goalkeeper.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

Somebody behind them coughs, dry as a wick and right against the space between Benni’s and the man’s chairs. They both mumble a poorly felt, “sorry,” as they meet each other’s eyes. Benni shoots the man a ‘what can you do?’ look and the man smiles. He adjusts himself in his seat so he can lean closer, all the while still rubbing circles on the back of Benni’s hand.

“So, Schalke Blue?” he asks after a couple of seconds, so quietly that to hear it, Benni has to turn towards him until they’re sitting face to face, only a couple of inches apart.

“Since I was a little kid. You?”

“Born and raised a Bayern fan, but Dortmund yellow has sneaked its way into my heart ever since I moved there.”

Benni doesn’t say, 'we’re practically neighbors,' even though the words almost tumble out on their own. They’d be too loud in the small bubble of silence they’ve created around them. Too intrusive. Too much. Instead, he says, “rooting for the enemy?” with a grin on his face. It’s easier and it fits the steady flow of conversation they have going.

Benni tries not to think about what it means that he’s already worrying about what he is and isn’t allowed to say to this man, a virtual stranger he met thirty-seven thousand miles into the air, in a closed vacuum outside the real world. He’s been trying not to overthink things lately.

“Come on, don’t make me feel worse than I already do, Schalke fan who goes to weddings in Portugal.”

“You know, you could just ask me my name,” Benni says. 

“I do know, but this is more fun,” the man says with a grin. Benni stares at his grin for more than is appropriate, but he can’t find it in him to do anything about it.

“Well, in case you get tired of making up those long names, it’s Benedikt, but I prefer Benni.”

“Alright, Benni,” he says the name slowly, rolling it on his tongue as if he’s testing it, checking how it feels. “I’m Mats, which isn’t short for anything because my parents couldn’t be bothered.”

Benni starts laughing, remembers he’s not supposed to be making any loud noises and tries stifles his laughter, which results in him nearly choking on his tongue. He says, “Sorry, I—” and gets the rest of his sentence swallowed by the plane when Satan’s metal contraption decides to start shaking like a leaf and makes Benni question all of his life choices.

“Hey, just hold on, alright? Head up.” Mats lifts Benni’s chin with his free hand. "And keep breathing. It’s fine, you’re fine,” he says, and Benni wants to reply he is not fine. He is the opposite of fine. He is two seconds away from throwing up and Mats really needs to move away if he wants to leave unscathed.

He tries to pull out his hand, but Mats isn’t having it. He turns Benni’s hand around and crosses their fingers together, so that they are, to all extents and purposes, holding hands thirty-seven thousand miles above France.

Benni holds back tighter.

“I’m really sorry if I puke on you.”

“You’re not gonna puke." A pause. "You’re not, right?”

Benni doesn’t reply. He knows that if he dares to open his mouth, what is going to come out will be more solid than words.

To distract himself, Benni starts singing Germany’s national anthem in his head, because that and the Barbie Girl song are the only ones he knows by heart. When he feels like he can talk again, he says, “no, I’m good. For now." He opens his eyes. “God, I hate flying.”

“Really? Because I couldn’t tell,” Mats says, voice dripping with sugar.

Benni turns his head around to glare at Mats. “We’ve known each other for less than an hour, don’t you dare get sarcastic with me so quickly,” he says, then ruins it all by smiling at the end because he’s a sucker and, in Draxler’s words, ‘you’d probably smile at your murderer if he said something nice to you’.

Mats smiles back. “If you hate flying so much, why are you putting yourself through all this? A wedding on the other side of Europe that may or may not have horses doesn’t sound that worth it, to be honest.”

“I’m trying to be more spontaneous and not overthink everything. Live less on the future and more on the moment,” Benni can’t help cringing at his own words. It just sounds so idiotic. ‘Live on the moment’. Who says things like that? The new him, apparently, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.

“And this is a… good thing?” Mats asks, picking up on Benni’s inner conflict.

“I’m not sure yet. It’s more of a ‘my ex-boyfriend, my mom and some of my friends kept nagging me about it, so I decided to give it a go’ thing. Whether it’s good or bad is still in debate, but I’m currently leaning more towards ‘bad’.”

If Mats is surprised or bothered to hear Benni has an ex-boyfriend and is currently going through a mid-twenties life crisis, he shows no sign of it. His hold on Benni’s hand is unwavering and he keeps his body angled towards Benni, face so close that one of them could lean in at any moment and kiss the other. Not that Benni has been thinking about that for the past ten minutes or anything.

“Well, let’s hope it gets better then.”

Benni nods and closes his eyes. He keeps taking deep breaths, focused on Mats’ hand and its warmth and Mats' steady breathing in his ear. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the next time he opens his eyes there’s a thin blanket thrown over him and he has a crick on his neck that makes him curse the flux of time.

“Hey, you’re awake,” says the person sitting next to him.  _Mats_ , his brain helpfully adds.

“Hello,” Benni replies at the speed of a slowpoke while he blinks and stretches his upper torso. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I fell asleep right in the middle of a conversation, didn’t I?” he asks when he’s a little more awake and infinitely more aware of how he’d literally fallen asleep as he was talking to Mats. This one is going in the ‘Embarrassing Shit Benni Has Done In His Twenty-Six Years on Earth’ books.

Mats waves him off. “It’s fine, you looked like you needed the rest.”

“What time is it?” Benni asks through a large, open-mouthed yawn that he’d have needed the strength of god to hide.

“A little over four. We still have an hour of flight left.”

Benni nods as he listens, but his eyes are no longer focused on Mats’ face. They’ve since trotted downwards, towards the armrest between them. Benni’s just noticed that earlier, Mats had used his right hand to wave him off, because his left is still on top of Benni’s, their fingers enlaced together.

Benni almost pulls his hand away by instinct, before he remembers that he’s been sleeping for the past four hours and that any point in those hours Mats could have quietly pulled his hand away to avoid any future awkwardness. He hadn’t. Benni has to fight everything in him not to analyze this situation beyond what his instincts are telling him, because his instincts are telling—screaming, more like—to take advantage of this situation and take it well.

“I’m gonna—“ Benni stands up, dropping Mats’ hand, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he says. He looks at Mats, sees the way Mats’ eyes roam his body as he checks Benni out. Mats licks his lips. Benni takes a deep breath.

Mats stands up as well to give him more room to pass, but all he can do is stand in front of his seat and lean back, since there’s still another guy that fell asleep the second the plane left the ground between them and the aisle.

Right then, Benni has the chance to leave without doing or saying anything else. It’s what he would have done maybe less than a month ago, but he’s tired of overthinking and worrying and never actually _doing_. He hasn’t decided to be more spontaneous because Rick, his ex-boyfriend who always wears immaculate suits, has a moon-sized ego and is frankly a dick, told him he needed to change. He’s trying to change because he wants to. 

So, for a tiny, dangerous second, Benni shuts off his brain and lets his body move without thinking.

He trails his hand across Mats’ stomach while holding on firmly to Mats’ shoulder with his other hand. He practically rubs himself against Mats’ front as he walks past him, making sure their shoulders and hips connect, so that Mats can take this in many ways, but not as something a friend would do.

He feels Mats’ eyes bore into the back of his neck while he walks towards the toilet at the end of the plane, and he hopes to whatever deity might be watching over them that he hasn’t just royally fucked this up.

When Benni gets to the toilet, he closes the door behind him and then leans against it as he lets out a long exhale. How long is he supposed to wait here? What will he do if Mats doesn’t come? Is it possible to change seats now or would that just make everything more awkward? Will he have to grow a beard and change his name when he gets back? So many questions, so little answers.

He doesn’t know whether he’s relieved or even more anxious when he hears a knock on the door, so light he nearly misses it. This changes once he opens the door and Mats enters the toilet, which was definitely not made for two people to stand in it, and looks down—fuck, he’s taller than Benni—at him.

“Airplane toilets are smaller than I remembered them being,” Mats says.

Benni nods. Trying not to think while still acting like a functional human being isn’t working that well for him. Luckily, Mats hasn’t run into the same kind of issues, so he’s the one to lean in— _down_ —to kiss Benni without any warning or preamble, crowding Benni against one of walls.

Mats kisses him slowly at first. His lips taste like orange soda and the stale air around them. Benni wants to trace every crack and curve with the tip of his tongue, memorize every crooked line. Mats doesn’t hesitate in pulling up the tails of Benni’s shirt to run his hands on the skin there, and Benni isn’t surprised to find that Mats’ hands are warm, so much warmer than Benni, and that Mats can’t keep them still. He moves them from Benni’s back to his hips and up his chest and all the while Benni just holds on to Mats’ shoulders and lets Mats pull him and push him however he pleases.

When Mats finally figures this out, with their lips still firmly closed and everything in PG-13 territory, he lets out a low groan and bites down on Benni’s bottom lip, both of which go straight to Benni’s dick.

“You are…“ Mats begins to say. He leaves the sentence hanging in the air.

Benni wants him to finish it, but he also doesn’t want to stop kissing Mats or for Mats to move away, not even for a second. He doesn’t know how he feels about the fact that he’s having sex in a plane with a guy he just met, where anyone could walk in on them, but one thing is for sure: he’s being extremely spontaneous and he’d normally never go for someone so out of his league, so this is a win any way you look at it.

“Thinking too much. You need to stop doing that,” Mats says, mumbling the words against Benni’s lips.

Benni shakes his head, trailing a fumbled kiss across Mats’ cheek. “I’m doing the opposite of that,” he says, which makes Mats chuckle.

“You’re not, but I can fix it,” Mats says, and then finally his hands trail down, instead of up, and set to work opening Benni’s belt.

Benni sucks in a surprised breath and his whole body shivers when he exhales. He grasps Mats’ neck with one of his hands, leaving half-moon marks on the tanned skin and pulling Mats even closer, so that their foreheads bump together and they share every breath they take. 

The air around them is too hot. It feels suffocating, like a tight fog is settling in the tiny space they’re enclosed in, but Benni couldn’t even dream about moving. He kisses Mats open-mouthed and shameless, sucks on his tongue and licks behind his teeth while Mats pushes down Benni’s fly and, without any hesitation, pulls down Benni’s pants and boxers in one go.

“Okay,” Benni gasps. "O-kay.”

Mats spits on his hand to make things smoother and he keeps his eyes on Benni’s face as slides his fingers over Benni’s dick. It’s too much, the attention, the contact, the way Mats knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s rough and he uses too much strength, drawing out the lewdest sounds from Benni.

Benni tries to hide his face in Mats’ neck, but Mats pushes him back and bites down on Benni’s neck, right next to the collarbone. Benni has to bite down on his lip as he comes to avoid making any loud noises, and before he knows it Mats is there, swallowing any sound Benni makes. He doesn’t let go of Benni until he’s pushed away. “That was…”

“Good?” Mats asks.

Benni begins to nod before he cuts himself off. “Don’t get cocky,” he says with a fake glare, because he already has an inkling of what Mats is like.

His answer gets the desired reaction, prompting Mats to smirk and say, “Please tell me that pun was intended.”

Benni grins, leans in close, past Mats’ mouth and towards Mats’ right ear. He opens his mouth to say something and then, just like Mats had done to him, he moves without any warning, dropping to his knees and pulling Mats’ pants and boxers down to his feet in less than five seconds.

Skills. He has them.

Benni doesn’t usually look at a person’s eyes while he’s sucking them off, but this time he has no choice. Mats lays a hand on top of his head and pulls at the short strands of hair, forcing him to look up while Benni licks a wet stripe down his shaft. Mats bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. The way he stares down at Benni is as if he’s never seen something so amazing in his entire life.

Benni doesn’t mind staring back after that.

He has to hold Mats’ hips in place with both his hands while he takes Mats’ dick in his mouth. Mats doesn’t seem to care about being held back, but Benni and his limited gag reflex do. He still tries to take him in as far as he can, though, sucking hard on the head when he pulls back. This, in turn, makes Mats hiss and tighten his hold on Benni’s air. Benni grips and wipes at his mouth, leaning forward to do the same thing all over again.

He spends the whole time listening to Mats’ muffled moans, the way he tries to hide them and how he bad he is at it. There’s no doubt that anybody outside the bathroom right now can hear them. Benni is not half as bothered by this as he would have thought.

When Mats comes, the only warning he gives is a desperate and bitten off, “Benni, _Benni_. I’m gonna—“ which only gets Benni to suck him harder. He doesn’t remember the last time he heard someone say his name like that, whispered frantically as if it was a dying prayer.

Benni swallows, there’s really not much anything else he can do. He cringes at the taste, and when he gets up both his knees ache like he's an obese dog after a run. It’s worth it, however, for the awed look on Mats’ face and for the way Mats kisses him as soon as Benni is on his feet, licking open Benni’s mouth in a way that is filthier than most porn movies Benni’s seen.

Benni pulls Mats closer by his hips, so that they’re glued to each other again. One of Mats’ hands stays placed on Benni’s neck, and Benni has a feeling it’s the one still dirty with come, while the other starts traveling up and down Benni’s back again.

They’re about to pull apart when a sharp knock on the door makes them freeze like two deers caught in the headlights.

Benni’s eyes go saucer wide as he stares in horror at door. It takes him a couple of seconds to find his voice, coughing as he says, “Just a second.”

Mats stops staring at the door to stare at Benni. He points at Benni’s chest frantically and then at himself. Benni splays his hands in the air. What else was he supposed to say? Oh, sorry, could you please back away and close your eyes while I walk out.

Mats waves his hands in the air like a wild animal, as if to say, well you could have tried.

Benni glares at him. Whoever is on the other side of that door isn’t an idiot.

Mats glares back. "You never know," he whispers.

Benni puts a hand on Mats’ chest and pushes, making him turn around and wash his hands while Benni tries to fix his own shirt—and hair and pants and basically everything—in the mirror. There’s nothing he can do about the blush on his cheeks or the bitten red on his lips, but at least Mats looks a bit more composed than him.

Right as they’re opening the door, Mats turns him around and pulls him in for a quick peck on the lips before fixing the collar of Benni’s shirt for him. He smiles.

Despite everything, Benni can’t help but to smile back.

This smile is rather short lived.

Benni walks out with his eyes focused on his own two feet and nothing else, but not even this can save him from noticing that the man in front of him is wearing bright green crocs, as they are bright and green and crocs and thus extremely noticeable. The sight makes him remember how the man sitting next to them in the aisle seat was wearing shoes exactly like those when he boarded the plane.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, _fuck_.

The speed Benni reaches as he steamrolls back to his chair is close to supersonic, and when he and Mats sit down they both stare at each other like they’ve just seen Death in a pink tutu.

“It’s the guy,” Benni says.

“I know.”

“The guy sitting next to you.”

“The guy sitting next to _us_ ,” Mats corrects, but Benni just shakes his head at him, mouth open in terror.

“No, he’s definitely sitting next to just you, but we can count me in because of proximity,” Mats stares him like Benni is the most useless, unhelpful human being on earth. Benni understands where he’s coming from. “Okay, let’s both close our eyes and pretend to be asleep when he comes back.”

“Seriously?” Mats gives him a flat look.

“He’s not going to say anything if we’re sleeping. That would be rude,” Benni says. He’s not one hundred percent sure if what he’s saying makes any sense or if his brain is too sex addled to put together two coherent thoughts. He _thinks_ he’s making sense. Kinda.

Mats stares at him doubtfully, but he does as Benni told him, closing his eyes and pushing his chair back into the sleeping position. Benni does the same, spreading the blanket that had been covering him earlier across both their laps.

One of Mats’ hands finds his underneath the blanket when the plane does a little downwards lurch. Benni holds back. This time, he’s the one drawing circles on Mats’ skin.

The rest of the flight is uneventful, if you can call them pretending to be asleep while holding hands for one hour uneventful. Benni is left with a lot of time to think and overthink and blow everything out of proportion, because that’s what he does, that’s who he is. But with the sky outside still bathed in starlight, and the warmth surrounding him, it’s easy to fall in and out of sleep, not thinking, not worrying, not wondering. He dreams about the show Friends and what it’d be like if he was part of the gang. He replaces Ross and at some point in his dream, Joey is replaced by Mats.

Benni doesn’t remember any of this by the time the plane has landed and Mats is shaking him out of his sleep.

“Congratulations, you made it the whole flight without puking,” he says, smiling brightly at Benni.

Benni smiles back and stretches his back. “Thank you, for this and for helping me and the—“ Benni coughs, not finishing when he notices the man on the aisle seat looking at them.

“No problem,” Mats replies, winking at him.

They walk out of their plane side by side, but when Benni stops at the baggage claim, Mats says, “I only brought a carry-on with me.”

“Oh,” Benni says, and then, “ _Oh_. Does that mean you’re…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, finding it difficult to say ‘leaving’ after everything that happened.

“Yeah,” Mats says. He looks like he’s having the same difficulties as Benni.

They stare at each other in silence, unsure of what to say. Benni has never been awkward with the people he’s been involved with before, but that’s the problem here. He doesn’t know if he and Mats are involved in the way Benni would like them to be, if they’re anything to each other. He barely even knows anything about Mats. He hadn’t asked. For all Benni knows, Mats has a family waiting for him back home and he was only taking advantage of the situation at hand.

Mats doesn’t seem like that kind of guy, but again, _Benni doesn’t know_. He hasn’t found his footing yet. He feels like a robot built the wrong way, tongue too big for his mouth and none of his limbs in working order.

“I could wait,” Mats says, pointing at the baggage belt. Benni nods and tries to swallow the lump in his throat.

They stand next to each other with their backs ramrod straight and the mood around them stilted. The other people in their plane are mingling in small groups, talking in tired, yawn-filled sentences and mostly looking at the ground. The man in the green crocs is nowhere to be seen.

Benni’s suitcase is one of the first to come out. He and Mats make their way out of the airport in front of everyone else. Benni can’t help but to smile at all the people waiting for their loved ones at the exit, awake and full of happiness despite the early honor. He catches Mats smiling as well out the corner of his eye, but he’s looking at Benni and not the people.

And then they’re out the airport and into the taxi line and Benni knows he needs to say something, because it’s now or never. Because Dortmund is a big place and he doesn’t even know Mats’ last name. Because if they leave their separate ways, they’ll never see each other again.

Benni tries to push out the words, but they refuse to form in the air, hiding in the corners of his mouth instead. He’s not usually so afraid. Maybe trying to change who he is wasn’t such a good idea.

Benni is the first one to get a taxi. He and Mats shake hands while the taxi driver grabs Benni’s suitcase and puts it in the trunk and this is it. Benni is going to leave in one cab and Mats is going to leave in the other and Benni is never going to see this funny, incredible man again and _this is it_. This is where their makeshift fantasy—if it was even that for both of them—ends.

It’s not easy for Benni to pull his hand away from Mats’, but he does it. He gets in the cab and closes the door. He looks back.

Mats is staring at him from the road. He’s just standing there, with his arms limp by his side and his face devoid of any feeling, until Benni’s car roars to life and starts driving away. Then, as if hit by a spell, Mats comes to life and starts shouting something at him, but by then Benni is already too far away to hear him.

The last thing Benni sees before leaving the airport is Mats entering the cab behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

It doesn’t take Benni long to notice there is a cab following him.

“Sorry, can you pull over for a second?” Benni asks in English, the cab driver turns to look at him and gives him a confused look. “Stop, just, stop,” Benni says, turning to look back at the cab behind them. It has to be Mats. It has to be.

The cab driver pulls over, says, “Eight euros,” while glaring at Benni.

“No, no. I’ll come back, just,” Benni lifts both his hands, pointing his palms at the driver, “wait,” he says.

“Eight euros,” the cab driver repeats, locking the doors. Benni sighs and hands over a tell euro bill, but not before he repeats. “Stay here, please. Just wait.”

He gets out the car at the same time as the other cab pulls over behind his. A gust of wind blows against them, biting into Benni’s skin and making his skin flush in crimson. Benni is thankful for it. At least this way he won’t look as if he’s blushing from embarrassment, which he absolutely is.

“I didn’t get your number,” is what Mats says to him after he rushes over. His hands go to Benni’s sides the first chance he gets as if he’s trying to make up Benni is well and truly there.

“You didn’t ask,” Benni states, even though it’s not what he wants to say at all. The words on the tip of his tongue are ones similar to ‘please call’ and ‘we should see each other’, but it’s harder to get those out.

“I’m asking now,” Mats says. He doesn’t look annoyed at Benni’s buff, no furrowed brows or twist of lips. Instead, he’s balancing on the balls of his feet, moving as if pushed by the wind. A hand reaches beneath Benni’s coat to graze the skin there and squeeze.

Benni puts a hand on Mats’ chest. He can feel the rise and fall of his lungs.

“Good,” Benni says. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help but to grin at Mats. He doesn’t remember the last time someone was so anxious because of him.

Benni gives him his number and Mats gives him a ring to make sure Benni gets his as well. Benni says, “We should do something while we’re both in Portugal.”

Mats replies, “I’d love to,” and then, “but if we don’t manage, we can do something back in Germany, right?”

Benni’s grin turns into a blown-out smile. “Definitely,” he says, feeling like a giddy teenager who’s been asked out by their crush and not caring in the slightest that he might be too old to behave like this.

They pull away from each other with so much reluctance Benni almost considers asking Mats to come with him to his hotel room. Nevertheless, as appealing as that thought is, now that they’re out of the airplane and out of the bubble, thrown back into the real world, Benni doesn’t want to rush head first into anything.

Never mind that he’s already had Mats’ dick in his mouth. From now on, he’s behaving like a gentleman, and a gentleman doesn’t ask someone they’ve known for six hours back to his hotel room for sex on a horizontal surface.

The universe, however, is a bit of an intruding bastard and doesn’t agree with Benni’s wish to do the right thing.

This is the only explanation Benni can come up with for what he sees when he turns around.

“My taxi left,” Benni says, gaping at where there should have been a taxicab and instead there is only his suitcase on the floor.

“Yes, a while ago actually. Was it not meant to?” Mats asks, staring at Benni’s pained expression with a touch of concern.

“Not really,” Benni says.

“Well, you can always come back with me. The wedding is only in a few days, right?”

The look Mats gives him, coupled with the wink and the smirk, tells Benni Mats knows perfectly well that the wedding is in four days and that if Benni goes with him now, there is no way he’s setting foot in his own hotel room this whole vacation.

Benni stares at Mats. He glances at his suitcase, fallen over on the grass. He thinks about how he was so set on doing the right thing only two minutes ago and how since then his thoughts have already strayed to the size of the shower in Mats’ hotel room.

Oh, who’s Benni even trying to fool?

He can be a gentleman when he wants to, but even he has his limits.

“Okay,” he agrees, reveling in the smile Mats gives him in reply.

This time, when Benni enters the cab, it’s with Mats in tow. It’s a much better ride than the one before.

 : :

A day later, Benni spends an hour on a Skype call with Marco, Mats’ best friend, who apparently wants to know what are his “intentions towards my son.” This makes Mats glare at the tablet and mutter something about Marco being ridiculous and Benni being more than free to shut off the call at any point. Benni doesn’t.

Four days later, Mats extends his trip and Benni drags him to the wedding on the excuse of needing company to steer off the nosy aunts and distant cousins too desperate for their own good.

 : :

(“Want to get out of here?" Benni asks.

Mats eyes him suspiciously. “You know we can’t steal any of the horses, right?”

"I don’t wanna—"

"Because I’ve seen the way you’ve been staring at them and I just you to know, here and now: we’re not stealing any horses."

Benni doesn’t feel the slightest bit bad about kicking Mats as hard as he can under the table.

“I know. I meant out of here and into my hotel room.”

“Well then, why didn’t you just say that?” Mats asks with such a cocky, annoying grin on his face that Benni almost considers ditching him and leaving on his own.

He doesn’t, of course. How could he, when he’s already in love with that smile?)


End file.
